History

What is now Tanzania was a colony and part of Germany from the 1880s to 1919, becoming British from 1919 to 1961. Shortly after independence, Tanganyika and Zanzibar merged to form the nation of Tanzania on April 26, 1964. One-party rule came to an end in 1995 with the first democratic elections held in the country since the 1970s.

Zanzibar

An early Arab/Persian trading centre, Zanzibar fell under Portuguese domination in the 16th and early 17th centuries but was retaken by Omani Arabs in the early 18th century. The height of Arab rule came during the reign of Sultan Seyyid Said, who encouraged the development of clove plantations, using the island's slave labour. The Arabs established their own garrisons at Zanzibar, Pemba, and Kilwa and carried on a lucrative trade in slaves and ivory.

In 1841, Sultan Sayyid Said moved his capital from Muscat to Zanzibar, and in 1856, the Sultanate of Zanzibar was separated from the Sultanate of Oman; to Zanzibar belonged the island of Pemba as well as the coastal lands, including Kilwa. Arab traders established caravan routes into the interior, facilitating trades; the camel provided transportation. Slaves were among the most profitable trading goods.

Zanzibar's spices attracted ships from as far away as the United States, with a US consulate established on the island in 1837. The United Kingdom's early interest in Zanzibar was motivated by both commerce and the determination to end the slave trade. The British East India Company had a representative on Zanzibar, who acted as an advisor to the sultan. In 1822, the British signed the first of a series of treaties with Sultan Said to curb this trade, but not until 1876 was the sale of slaves finally prohibited. Although reduced, an illegal slave trade continued.

The Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty of 1890 made Zanzibar and Pemba a British protectorate, and the Caprivi Strip in Namibia became a German protectorate. British rule through a Sultan remained largely unchanged from the late 19th century until after World War II.

Zanzibar received its independence from the United Kingdom on December 19, 1963, as a constitutional monarchy under the sultan. However, on January 12, 1964, the African majority revolted against the sultan, and the following April, Zanzibar united with Tanganyika to form the United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar.

Tanganyika

Early History

Northern Tanganyika's famed Olduvai Gorge has provided rich evidence of the area's prehistory, including fossil remains of some of humanity's earliest ancestors. Discoveries suggest that East Africa may have been the site of human origin.

Little is known of the history of Tanganyika's interior during the early centuries. The area is believed to have been inhabited originally by ethnic groups using a click-tongue language similar to that of South Africa's Bushmen and Hottentots. Although remnants of these early tribes still exist, most were gradually displaced by Bantu farmers migrating from the west and south and by Nilotes and related northern peoples. Some of these groups had well-organised societies and controlled extensive areas by the time the Arab traders, European explorers, and missionaries penetrated the interior in the first half of the 19th century.

The coastal area first felt the impact of foreign influence as early as the first centuries of the current era. Rhapta, the southernmost marketplace of Azania, was familiar to merchants of the Roman period, which has been located at points from Tanga south to the delta of the Rufiji River.

Later, Arab traders established posts the coast, perhaps as early as the 8th century. By the 12th century, traders and immigrants came from as far away as Persia (now Iran) and India. The natives built a series of highly developed city and trading states along the coast, the principal one being Kibaha, a settlement that held ascendancy until the Portuguese destroyed it in the early 1500s.

The Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama (who discovered Mossel Bay) explored the East African coast in 1498 on his voyage to India. By 1506, the Portuguese claimed control over the entire coast. This control was nominal, however, because the Portuguese did not colonise the area or explore the interior. Assisted by Omani Arabs, the indigenous coastal dwellers succeeded in driving the Portuguese from the area north of the Ruvuma River by the early 18th century. Trade in general had prospered, a chain of coastal trading towns, among them Tanga and Bagamoyo, had emerged. Bagamoyo, a name derived from the term 'Bwaga Moyo' which means 'throw your heart away'; was a port from where slaves were shipped.

Tanganyika (1848-1886)

In 1848 the German missionary Johannes Rebmann discovered Mount Kilimanjaro; in 1858 British explorers Richard Burton and John Speke crossed the interior to Lake Tanganyika. David Livingstone, the Scottish missionary-explorer who crusaded against the slave trade, established his last mission at Ujiji, where he was "found" by Henry Morton Stanley, an American journalist-explorer, who had been commissioned by the New York Herald to locate him.

In 1877, the first of a series of Belgian expeditions arrived on Zanzibar. In the course of these expeditions, in 1879 a station was founded in Kigoma on the eastern bank of Lake Tanganyika, soon to be followed by the station of Mpala on the opposite western bank. Both stations were founded in the name of the Comite D'Etudes Du Haut Congo, a predecessor organisation of the Congo Free State. The fact that this station had been established and supplied from Zanzibar and Bagamoyo lead to the inclusion of East Africa into the territory of the Conventional Basin of the Congo at the Berlin Conference of 1885.

At the conference table in Berlin, contrary to widespread perception, Africa was not partitioned; rather rules were established amongst the colonial powers and prospective colonial powers as how to proceed in the establishment of colonies and protectorates. While the Belgian interest soon concentrated on the Congo River, the British and Germans focused on Eastern Africa and in 1886 partitioned continental East Africa amongst themselves; the Sultanate of Zanzibar, now reduced to the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba, remained independent, for the moment.

The Congo Free State was eventually to give up its claim on Kigoma (its oldest station in Central Africa) and on any territory to the east of Lake Tanganyika, to Germany.

German Colonialism

German colonial interests were first advanced in 1884. Karl Peters, who formed the Society for German Colonisation, concluded a series of treaties by which tribal chiefs in the interior accepted German "protection". Prince Otto von Bismarck's government backed Peters in the subsequent establishment of the German East Africa Company.

In 1886 and 1890, Anglo-German agreements were negotiated that delineated the British and German spheres of influence in the interior of East Africa and along the coastal strip previously claimed by the Omani sultan of Zanzibar. In 1891, the German Government took over direct administration of the territory from the German East Africa Company and appointed a governor with headquarters at Dar es Salaam.

Maji Maji Rebellion

While the German colonial administration brought cash crops, railroads and roads to Tanganyika, European rule provoked African resistance. Between 1891 and 1894, the Hehe (lead by Chief Mkwawa) resisted German expansion, but were eventually defeated. After a period of guerrilla warfare, Mkwawa himself was cornered and committed suicide in 1898. The resistance culminated in the Maji Maji Rebellion of 1905-1907.

Germans had occupied the area since 1897 and totally altered many aspects of everyday life. They were actively supported by the missionaries who tried to destroy all signs of indigenous beliefs, notably by razing the 'mahoka' huts where the local population worshiped their ancestors' spirits and by ridiculing their rites, dances and other ceremonies. This would not be forgotten or forgiven; the first battle, which broke out at Uwereka in September 1905 under the Governorship of Count Gustav Adolf von Götzen, turned instantly into an all-out war with indiscriminate murders and massacres perpetrated by all sides against farmers, settlers, missionaries, planters, villages, indigenous people and peasants.

The rebellion, which temporarily united a number of southern tribes and ended only after an estimated 120,000 Africans had died from fighting or starvation, is considered by most Tanzanians to have been one of the first stirrings of nationalism.

World War I

During World War I, an invasion attempt by the British was thwarted by German General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck at the Battle of Tanga, who, after the battle, mounted a drawn out guerrilla warfare campaign against the British, which kept the war in Tanganyika going for the entire length of the First World War.

German colonial domination of Tanganyika ended after World War I when control of most of the territory passed to the United Kingdom under a League of Nations mandate. The United Kingdom transferred the Provinces of Ruanda and Urundi, in the NW, to Belgium, with the concurrence of the Supreme Council. These Provinces contained three-sevenths of the population and more than half the cattle of the Colony.

Dar-es-Salaam remained the seat of Government of the conquered Colony. The first Administrator was Sir Horace Archer Byatt, C.M.G. The native troops went back to their villages and the few Germans that remained were reported as settling down under the new Administration.

1920-1961: British Tanganyika

The colony was renamed Tanganyika Territory in 1920, and in 1921, the Belgians transferred the Kigoma district, which they had administered since the occupation, to British administration. The United Kingdom and Belgium signed an agreement regarding the border between Tanganyika and Ruanda-Urundi in 1924.

British policy was to rule indirectly, that is, through the African leaders. In 1926, a Legislative Council was established to advise the governor. In 1928 the railway line Tabora-Mwanga was opened to traffic, the line from Moshi to Arusha in 1929.

Under British rule, more hospitals were built and efforts were undertaken to fight the Tsetse fly, Malaria and Bilharziasis. In 1926, the Colonial administration provided subsidies to schools run by missionaries. The education budget for Tanganyika in 1935 amounted to US$240,000, although it is unclear how much this represented at the time in terms of purchasing power parity.

The British administration took measures to revive African institutions by encouraging limited local rule and authorised the formation in 1922 of political clubs such as the Tanganyika Territory African Civil Service Association. In 1926 some African members were unofficially admitted into the Legislative Council and in 1929 the Association became the Tanganyika African Association which would constitute the core of the nascent nationalist movement. In 1945 the first Africans were effectively appointed to the Governor's Legislative Council.

Subsequent years witnessed Tanganyika moving gradually toward self-government and independence.

1961: Independence for Tanganyika

In 1954, Julius Nyerere, a school teacher who was then one of only two Tanganyikans educated abroad at the university level, organised a political party: the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU). In May 1961, Tanganyika became autonomous, and Nyerere became Prime Minister under a new constitution. Full independence was achieved on December 9, 1961. Mr. Nyerere was elected President when Tanganyika became a republic within the Commonwealth a year after independence.

United Republic of Tanzania

On April 26, 1964, Tanganyika united with Zanzibar to form the United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar; this was renamed the United Republic of Tanzania on October 29, 1964. The name Tanzania is a combination of Tanganyika and Zanzibar and previously had no significance.

In 1979, Tanzania declared war on Uganda after Uganda invaded and attempted to annex the northern Tanzanian province of Kagera. Tanzania not only expelled Ugandan forces, but, enlisting the country's population of Ugandan exiles, also invaded Uganda itself. On April 11, 1979, Idi Amin was forced to quit the capital, Kampala. The Tanzanian army took the city with the help of the Ugandan and Rwandan guerrillas and Amin fled into exile.

From independence in 1961 until the mid-1990s, Tanzania was a one-party state, with a socialist model of economic development. Prime Minister Nyerere handed over power to Ali Hassan Mwinyi in 1985, but retained control of the ruling party, Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM), as Chairman until 1990, when he handed that responsibility to Mwinyi. In October 1995, one-party rule came to an end when Tanzania held its first ever multi-party election. However, CCM comfortably won the elections and its candidate Benjamin Mkapa was subsequently sworn in as the new president of the United Republic of Tanzania on 23 November 1995. In December 2005, Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete was elected the 4th president for a five-year term.